Cartoon Figure Drawing & Anatomy

Whenever you hear 'figure drawing' or 'anatomy' the first thing that usually comes to mind - with respect to art...

Is sketching realistic human representations...

Based on real models and/or photographs.

Cartoon-wise though, keeping the essence of 'simplicity' in mind - drawing the figure and anatomical parts of a character, maybe like the ones you'll find here one the site...

Can be a slightly different ball game.

So how is it different?

Good question! :-)

Drawing cartoons, you gradually come to realize that there's more freedom with respect to the various structural & proportional aspects involved.

Whether your character - animal - monster - etc. - is more or less simplified - or more or less exaggerated...

There really is an infinite number of ways to tackle the shape and stance of the body, along with the various parts which compose it.

A quick look to the right, and you've got a cartoony homage to Leonardo Da Vinci's 'Vitruvian Man'.

And nope - not even close to the perfect/to scale representation of a human in his version... instead - it's the complete opposite - simple, cartoony, fun!

Something to note. When it comes to drawing the human body, or anything for that matter - there's a big difference between "just drawing for fun, and creating simple cartoony images - much like the ones here on this site"...

...and focusing on drawing from life, and developing the various 3-dimensional shapes, and all the twists, turns, etc. that must be taken into account, when it comes to drawing more realistic things.

In fact - I can't recommend this enough!

Get as much practice as possible - drawing models, and working on sketches that focus on the human skeleton, muscle mass, etc.

Again though, for the sake of drawing fun and simple 2-dimensional cartoons - remember that the lessons found here on this page...

Are just that. :-)

And so, let's keep this train of thought in mind when tackling (and for me - creating!) the lessons in this area of the site.